A Personal CRM Template You Can Copy
(Apple Notes, Notion, Google Sheets)

You don’t need an app to keep track of the people in your life. A note or a spreadsheet with the right few headings does most of the job, and it’s free. The hard part isn’t the tool. It’s knowing what to write down in the minute you have after a conversation.

This template answers that with five lines. They’re the same five lines OldMate uses for a note’s page, because they’re what you need the next time you see someone. If you’re new to the idea, What a personal CRM is, and whether you need one covers the basics.

The five lines

Add a Promised line for anything you said you’d do, and a date. That’s the whole template. Resist adding more: every extra heading is one more reason to skip it when you’re tired.

The template as a note

One note per person, with their name on the first line. Each time you catch up, add a new dated block under “How we know each other”, newest at the top, so the latest news is the first thing you read.

[Their name]
How we know each other:

[Date] · [Where]
What's new:
Something to ask:
Promised:
When next:

Filled in, it looks like this. Callum is made up, like everyone in the examples.

Callum Reid
How we know each other: Jess's brother, met at her 40th

4 Oct 2026 · Jess's 40th in Geelong
What's new: Bought a block near Torquay, hoping to build next year
Something to ask: Whether the council approved the plans
Promised: Send him our builder's number
When next: Probably the Christmas barbecue at Jess's

The template as columns

For a table in Notion or a spreadsheet, the same lines become columns. Here’s the header row, ready to paste:

Who,Where,What's new,Something to ask,When next,Promised,Date

You have one choice to make: one row per person, which is quicker to read but means writing over last time’s news, or one row per catch-up, which keeps the history and needs a filter to see one person at a time. Notion suits the first, because each row opens as a page that can hold the history underneath. A spreadsheet suits the second.

Set it up in Apple Notes

Apple’s steps for iPhone, from its iPhone User Guide (checked on 4 October 2026):

1. Make a folder. In the folders list, tap the New Folder button, choose an account if you have more than one, tap New Folder and call it People.
2. Start a note per person. Tap the New Note button. The first line becomes the note’s title, so put their name there, then paste the template underneath.
3. Tag it, if you like. Type # and a one-word tag such as #family or #work, then a space. Tags work across folders.
4. Pin who you’re seeing soon. Touch and hold the note, then tap Pin Note, and it sits at the top of the list.
5. Find someone before you see them. Tap the Search button and type their name or a word you remember from the note.

If you’d rather talk than type, Notes can record audio and transcribe it on iPhone 12 and later in supported languages: in a note, tap the Attachments button, then Record Audio. You can then add the transcript to the note. If you lock a note, keep in mind that only its title shows up in search, and that notes with tags or recordings can’t be locked.

Set it up in Notion

From Notion’s help centre (checked on 4 October 2026):

1. Create the table. Make a new page and choose Table under “Get started with”, or type /database in an existing page.
2. Rename the first column to Who. It holds each row’s title.
3. Add the other columns. Select + next to the right-most property, give it a name and choose a type: Text for most, Date for Date. Use the table above.
4. Make a catch-up template. Click the dropdown arrow next to New at the top right of the database, choose + New template, name it Catch-up and paste the note template into its body. Pick it from the same menu whenever you add someone.
5. Sort by the latest. Open the settings menu at the top of the database, select Sort, choose Date and set it to descending.

Each row opens as a page, so keep the latest catch-up in the columns and paste older ones into the page body. You get a scannable table and the history in one place.

Set it up in Google Sheets

From Google’s Docs Editors Help, for a computer (checked on 4 October 2026):

1. Paste the header row into cell A1 of a new spreadsheet.
2. Split it into columns. Select A1, then click Data, then Split text to columns. If Sheets guesses the wrong separator, choose it from the Separator menu.
3. Freeze the header. Select row 1, then click View, then Freeze, and choose one row, so the headings stay put as you scroll.
4. Add one row per catch-up, newest at the bottom.
5. See one person at a time. Select your columns, then click Data, then Create a filter. The filter on Who shows just their rows.

If you want to tick off the question once you’ve asked it, add an Asked? column and give it a dropdown: select the cells, then Insert, then Dropdown, and add the options Yes and Not yet.

A word on other people’s details

Whatever you use, it holds things about people who never signed up for it. Before you write in a shared Notion workspace or a sheet other people can open, check who else can see it. Leave out anything you wouldn’t want read back to the person, and keep health and money details to what you’d need to be kind. There’s more on the etiquette in Is it weird to keep notes on your friends? and, for work, Remembering client details.

When a template is enough

• You keep up with a handful of people, not dozens.
• You usually have a couple of quiet minutes, at a desk or on the train, after you see someone.
• You like typing, and you like owning the file.
• You remember to open it before the next catch-up. My list of questions to ask a friend you haven’t seen in a while is built around the Something to ask line.

If that’s you, the template will serve you well. Stick with it.

When it stops working

Templates tend to fail in the same place: the minute after the conversation. You’re walking to the car, someone’s waiting, and opening a spreadsheet on your phone to find the right row and the right cell is just enough effort to put it off. By the evening the detail has gone flat. I wrote about that gap in Ditch the spreadsheet, and about how quickly detail fades in Why we forget names.

The signs it’s happening:

• Rows with a name and nothing else.
• Notes written days later that say “good chat, follow up”.
• Promises you made that never reached the page.
• Busy weeks, like the evening after a conference, where you meet more people than you can type up. After a networking event has a shorter routine for those.

That gap is what OldMate is for. You say or type the note the way you’d tell someone about it, and the same five lines fill in beside your words as you go. Here’s Callum’s catch-up again:

To be fair to the template: OldMate doesn’t decide when you should get in touch either, and you still have to open Callum’s page before the barbecue. What changes is the minute after the conversation. A template costs nothing and you choose where it lives; OldMate needs an account, and sorting your words means sending them to the AI services named in its privacy policy. If a template works for you, keep it.